By Tyler Lilly – Editorial & News Editor

Ahead of the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, Attorney General Todd Blanche has said that the DOJ could sue multiple states over election integrity. This follows the Justice Department filing a lawsuit against Alaska that threatens to block the election certification process unless the Republican incumbent wins. The DOJ did this under the reasoning that the Democratic candidate and Republican candidate both share the last name of Sullivan, which could cause voter confusion. However, this reasoning is flimsy at best, and the lawsuit directed at upholding election integrity, along with any possible future lawsuits, seem to be an attempt to compromise it rather than uphold it.

The recent suit filed by Trump’s DOJ only applies if the Alaskan Republican nominee loses, made further apparent with Trump calling Democratic senate candidate Sullivan Jr’s candidacy a disgrace. The lawsuit is quite obviously ignoring the opposite outcome, that confused voters who wanted to vote for Sullivan Jr. end up mistakenly voting for Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan, making the Republican win by voter confusion. This shows that the DOJ is biased towards the Republicans, as the lawsuit would only benefit them. Even setting the bias aside, the idea of a voter getting confused and voting for the wrong candidate is completely absurd, as the way ballots are structured makes such a mistake highly unlikely to happen.

Since Todd Blanche did say that additional lawsuits to other states are a possibility, the one lawsuit in Alaska is only the start of a bigger issue, that being the normalization of election interference from the DOJ right before midterms. The Trump administration is seeing how far they can push the envelope with meddling in elections, which blatantly goes against the U.S.’s democracy. The state of Alaska is saying that the lawsuit has no legal basis, and is calling on federal judges to dismiss the lawsuit. With how aggressively unfounded this lawsuit is, it is sure to get dismissed by a judge in the near future. Even when it does get dismissed, it’s still scary that the government is targeting elections through lawsuits in an attempt to sway the results. 

Election integrity is one of the most important things in the U.S.. With the Department of Justice suing and threatening to sue states over election results, it really puts into question how much the current administration values free and fair elections.